Christopher Hitchens reduces Buddhism to a phrase

The feared and renowned atheist Christopher Hitchens is featured in an article by Anthony Gottlieb (no relation) in the most recent New Yorker -- an article which reviews the surge in post-9/11 atheist literature and positions Hitchens as the poster-child of angry new-millenium atheism. To wit:

Hitchens is nothing if not provocative. Creationists are 'yokels,' Pascal's theology is 'not far short of sordid,' the reasoning of Christian writer C.S. Lewis is 'so pathetic as to defy description,' Calvin was a 'sadist and torturer and killer,' Buddhist sayings are 'almost too easy to parody,' most Eastern spiritual discourse is 'not even wrong,' Islam is a 'rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms,' Hanukkah is a 'vapid and annoying holiday,' and the psalmist King David was an 'unscrupulous bandit.'

The excerpt above makes me wonder what Buddhist writings Hitchens has been reading. Since he refers to "sayings," I can only imagine that he's restricting himself to the Zen birthday cards in the Hallmark stores, or their equivalent.

Turns out that, as he and his colleagues do with all other religions, he conflates all forms of Buddhism into one system "as hysterical and sanguinary as any other system that relies on faith and tribe," when trashing the Dalai Lama's (admittedly sometimes imbalanced) balancing act as both head of state and spiritual leader.

I found Zen writings to be among the most challenging and satisfying I'd ever read -- particularly the writings of Eihei Dogen, a 13th-century Japanese monk and the founder of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism. They may in fact be absurdly easy to parody; most writing that's great fits that description.

Some samples:

Now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or its place. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point; for the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others'. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past, and it is not merely arising now.

Accordingly, in the practice-enlightenment of the buddha way, meeting one thing is mastering it -- doing one practice is practicing completely.

*

When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.

*

Zen master Guangzuo of Mt. Zhimen was once asked by a monk, "What is going beyond buddha?"

He said, "To carry sun and moon on the end of your staff."

This means that you are completely covered by the sun and moon on top of a staff. This is buddha going beyond. When you penetrate the staff that carries sun and moon, the entire universe is dark. This is buddha going beyond. It is not that the sun and moon are the staff. "On the end of a staff" means the entire staff.

*

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops in the grass, or even in one drop of water.

Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky.

The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however short or long its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.

-- Selections from Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi

Dogen was not a fan of practice with koans or chanting: he believed in sitting in meditation, in "dropping off body and mind" as a way of piercing through the accepted shells of existence and deeply understanding the imperanence of everything.

If this seems easy to parody, it's only because it's almost impossible to do.

Try it sometime.

--T.A.

Comments

"Dalai Lama's (admittedly sometimes imbalanced) balancing act as both head of state and spiritual leader." ...you don't find it unsettling to have a head of state being a spiritual leader. I think maybe some Buddhists spend too much time in their meditative state to realize the ramifications of having a religious leader being in control of your state, much in the vein of the monarchy of England. Tibet is setup on the basis of Fuedlism, hardly seems like a spiritual journey into the past that I would want to take.

"If this seems easy to parody, it's only because it's almost impossible to do." easy to but impossible, which is it??

I think the problem Hitchens has with Buddhism also goes beyond their sayings, but into the religious dogmas that exist with it.

I find it odd that buddhist try to escape the confines of religion and say that buddhism is a "philosophy" yet look for transcendence and believe in reincarnation.

"...yet look for transcendence and believe in reincarnation." Buddha rejected reincarnation, and the official stance of buddhists is one of reBIRTH. Buddhistic metaphysics aren't really important anyway, since the Buddha focused on producing positive karma (literally "creating one's self") in the moment, and he kept a noble silence on the afterlife.

These militant atheists seem to me very silly in how they compartmentalize all religion and act as though since THEY haven't experienced it, it's wrong. Seems to me that that is exactly what Dogma develops out of. Dogma is simply clinging to your own closed mind. Atheists are not as undogmatic as they think.

As for the Dalai Lama...he is a loving man, a simple monk, and wants to end his people's suffering. He isn't perfect, but seriously, he is infinitely more rational and pragmatic than say *cough* George Bush.

Buddhism is, and will always be, a non-theistic philosophy. Buddhism does not set out to govern one's personal behavior, like Christianity or Islam, nor does it make any fervent claims to the existence of superfluous deities. Therefore, one can not be in the position to proclaim that it's a form of religion to begin with.

Christopher Hitchens even said, "It can even be argued that Buddhism is not, in our sense of the word, a "religion" at all." He was merely trying to point out the absurdity of faith against reason, and how dangerous unrelenting fanaticism is, which I wholeheartedly agree with.

Albert Einstein also spoke of Buddhism in a rather positive light.

"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and the spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity." - Albert Einstein.